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Friday, 24th April is the Big Day!

Tomorrow, the 24th April, is the big book launch day! Lovers and Lies, Book 5 of my Witches of the New Forest fiction series, comes out.

I am so excited for this book. I think it has probably been my favourite to write, so far. Ryder, the younger Williams sister, is such a fun character, and I am thoroughly enjoying her successes and empathising with her failures as she solves the ghostly smuggling mystery in Burley.

Each and every character in the books is an aspect of myself, and Ryder is most definitely my Younger Self. Impulsive and fearless, she learns by doing, not by watching and waiting. She wears her heart on her sleeve, which means it gets broken often, but that doesn’t stop her from loving and from loving love itself.

Lots of side characters are finding their own feet in Ryder’s story: Mackenzie, the younger Walker brother (everyone knows and loves Dougal, the older sibling), as well as a new understanding of Alexander Hardwick, as you will discover. I love complex characters, and Xander is certainly one of those who is deliciously fun to write.

There is one more book left to write in Ryder’s story, which I am aiming to have released in time for Samhain (Hallowe’en). This book is titled Traitors and Trysts, and that is all that I am going to say about it for now!

Writing fiction has always been my first love, and I am so blessed to be able to do this now. I am also so thankful to all my lovely readers, who are so supportive and, like me, can’t wait to see what happens next!

Unlike my non-fiction, these books aren’t planned out in detail. I have a general idea of where the story is going, as well as some major scenes that pop into my head for the characters. What happens in between, well, that’s up to the muses as I sit down at my computer every day, typing away and just letting the inspiration flow. It has truly been an amazing journey so far, and I thank the muses from the bottom of my heart for being with me during this adventure.

You can pick up your copy of Lovers and Lies (Witches of the New Forest, Book 5) from Amazon and Rakuten Kobo. Only the Kindle and Kobo e-book editions are available for pre-order, but all editions, including paperback and hardcover, will come out on the same date: Friday, 24 April 2026.

I hope you enjoy it!

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Letting the Universe Have a Say…

Reaching into the bowl at the little metaphysical shop a few villages over from my parents’ place in Quebec, I expected some trite little reading to appear on the papers that filled the bowl on the counter. Some sort of New Age fortune cookie-type deal, I snarked silently to myself. I handed one to my mother and took one for myself.

That piece of paper is now sitting in front of me here in Suffolk, England, on the base of my laptop, a daily reminder of something that I often forget.

“Lorsque tu fais tes demandes á l’Univers, ne te soucie pas du quant ni du comment. Lâche prise. L’Univers se charge du reste.”

When you make your requests to the Universe, don’t worry about the when or how. Let go. The Universe will take care of the rest.

As a Virgo, I like to take charge of my life, and sometimes, that of others. As a Witch and a Druid, I also have abilities to influence and nudge certain things, to create a better environment around me. But there always comes a point when I must admit to myself that it’s time to let go, to drop the imaginary reins that I am holding on to in my life.

There are so many external factors in everything that comes our way, that it is simply impossible to be in control of everything. Heck, it’s damned-near impossible to be in control of anything, in all honesty. I’ve come to realise that the only thing we can truly control is ourselves and our reaction to things, and even then, we all fail miserably more often than not.

In my work, it’s actually only the writing that I have any control over, and even then, it’s sometimes tenuous. Because the muses are flowing through me, and as I never quite know what is going to happen each time I sit down to do a little more of my book, it’s a form of letting go, even though I am typing away at the keyboard, and I am doing the work. But it’s a shared work, partnering with something bigger, or at the very least, just different from my physical form. It’s like an athlete getting into the zone and becoming their sport, or the artist becoming their painting. It’s not just them, but something else, too.

And it’s in that letting go where that magic happens.

That being said, there’s also a huge other side to being an author. It’s doing all the marketing, budgeting for the marketing, recording sales, etc., that crashes in on the wonderful artistic side of the craft. And that is where I have a much more difficult time in letting go. I want to understand algorithms so that I can use them to my advantage (hot tip: no one understands any algorithm. No matter what they try to tell you, or sell you.) I want to understand the numbers and the sales around the world, so that I can approach different audiences and expand my creative outlet. But there is only so much that I can do, and then allow the universe to take care of the rest.

Returning to my meditation practice is probably the best thing to help me let go, to just be for a little while, without the thought, the struggle, the work. It’s a time for me to set down all those heavy bags of worry, of plans, of to-do lists and just be.

It’s bliss.

And it’s something that I’m trying to incorporate more into my life, in all aspects and not just in my writing. Because, in all honesty, isn’t that what living is all about?

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Why Do I Write?

Why do I write?

It’s an interesting question. I’ve always been a passionate person. About life. Love. Freedom. Respect. Accountability. Equality. And though I’ve dabbled in music and art, writing is where I feel that I can truly express myself without any barriers. It comes as naturally to me as breathing. I think in writing, in prose, in poetry. It just doesn’t stop. Ideas, stories, phrases come to me in the middle of the night, or while taking a bath, or going for a walk, or making love. Much as a musician can’t breathe if they can’t make music, I can’t function if I can’t write. Whatever muse or muses stand at my shoulder, they keep providing me with the energy and inspiration to write, to inspire others, and for that, I am utterly grateful each and every day.

I began writing fiction at the age of thirteen. I had read The Lord of the Rings, and my world opened to a vast realm of possibility. I saw myself in the books that I read, and created new stories around those ideas. But by the age of twenty-three, after I had been rejected by publishers who stated that the stories were “too advanced” or that they were looking to sell books “for sixteen-year-old boys”, I gave up.

In my thirties, I returned to writing, but this time it was non-fiction. I became a published non-fiction author, writing about different aspects of Druidry and then in my forties about Witchcraft. I was able to share my personal path, walked over decades and miles of forest, countryside and city jungles. I was able to inspire others, and every email, message or comment on how someone’s life had changed because of the words—it meant everything to me.

My life took a completely different route in 2024. My love for fiction never left me, and the self-publishing industry allowed me to write what I wanted, for whoever wanted to read it. It levelled the playing field, so to speak, for writers to not have to kneel before whoever decided who the readership would be.

We simply got the chance to write the stories that flowed through us.

And it was the best thing that I have ever done.

For I had never, ever left my true love. I couldn’t—creating stories is who I am as a being. I am a storyteller, and even in my non-fiction, I wove real-life narratives and tales into the work. But now, well, now the sky is the limit, and my muses are one hundred per cent behind me.

My Witches of the New Forest fiction series has really taken off, and has a dedicated audience that I am so blessed to interact with. When I write for them, I often don’t know where the story will go; I only have a vague inclination as to the paths the characters will choose. I simply sit down and write, allowing the muses to speak and flow through me. All that I know is that I want to create tales of women coming into their own power, and discovering love, loss, mystery and adventure along the way. It’s been a long, roundabout journey for me to return to my first love, and I am eternally grateful for the opportunity to do so.

My writing is a reflection of who I am. They are my stories that I am telling, as well as the stories of other women, both fictional and in real life. They are all through the lens that I view the world through, in all its Mystery. It is the breathing in and the breathing out, the taking in and releasing, the cycles of the ebb and flow of the vast oceans and the turning of the seasons.

They are stories of hope.

And this is why I write. It is a part of me, it is who I am, and what the muses encourage me to do.

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I Stopped Meditating

I stopped meditating for a few months.

Sometimes, when everything in your life just seems so much bigger than before, we can often set aside the so-called smaller things in order to focus and cope with the larger things.

But here’s the thing: it’s the small things that add up over time, which help us to deal with the big stuff.

From December until now, in mid-March 2026, my daily routine and ritual consisted of a short prayer to my goddess, and occasional walks when I had the time out on the heath. Over the winter holidays, when I was travelling, even this fell by the wayside until I returned home. Daily meditations went out the window because I thought I just didn’t have the time.

What I forgot was this one essential truth: we can always make time for the things that really matter in our lives.

It was the end of February, and after a long, hard day editing my latest book, Lovers and Lies (Witches of the New Forest, Book 5, coming out in April), I went upstairs to sit at the window in my disused meditation space. This seat offers me a wonderful view of the back garden and beyond, down the little valley that leads to the stream at the end of the lane that eventually flows out to the sea. My mind was a mess of worry, busy thoughts, and more.

And then I put them all down for ten brief seconds.

I watched the pine trees swaying in the breeze, and heard the blackbird singing in the evening light. And for those ten seconds, seeing the natural world just outside my window, just being, doing its own thing, I left all my mental baggage and enjoyed a moment of just existing, quietly, in that very moment.

It brought tears of relief to my eyes.

It is so difficult to describe that feeling in words. It was like I was carrying heavy luggage around in my mind and body, and I had simply set it down and taken a long, steadying breath.

And I then realised that I didn’t want to pick up those heavy bags again.

On and off, when I could, at the end of each working day, I went upstairs to look out that window and reconnect for a few minutes. Sometimes I was successful. Most of the time I was not. And then I knew that I had to do more. I had to reinstate my daily meditation practice.

And so I am. For fifteen minutes a day, to begin with, I am going to just sit and release all the thoughts that are whirring around in my brain. I want to feel that beautiful release of setting down that baggage and instead walking through life with just my carry-on. Light, easy to carry and easy to set down, this is how I want to move through the world again. We can lose sight so quickly of what really matters to us. There are so many distractions, so many so-called refuges that are anything but. For me, I know what works. And that is sitting quietly, observing all my crazy whirlwind thoughts, and then letting them go, one by one, as I set down my baggage for the day and walk into the world slightly less mentally encumbered.

Just as whenever I fly back to Canada to visit my family, I only ever take carry-on luggage. Easy to move, small and lightweight, no extra expenses. No worries about lost luggage, no waiting in the luggage area after a flight, I can just walk out of the airport and get on with my holiday. This is how I plan to move through life. It’s only the essentials that matter.

I’d like to thank that pine tree and blackbird, who reminded me of what it is that I needed to focus on in my life right now, when I had lost my way.

And I will meditate and give myself the time to remember this valuable lesson.

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More Peace and Less the Joy of Viciousness

Being a bit of a hermit living out on the far eastern edges of England and not engaging all that much online in favour of working with the land and the local people around me, I miss a lot of the intensity, drama, and other goings-on in the Pagan/Witchcraft/Heathen/Druid community. The online community is but one of many communities in which people can gather, and yet for the last decade or two seems to have taken prominence over others. Whether this is a good thing or not I am not going to judge. What I will comment on in this blog post, however, is the validity of one’s own practice, religion, or path in light of the divisiveness that communities can create, which in today’s day and age the loudest seems to be the online community.

This is nothing new. Communities are where people gather, and where people gather there will always be shit-talking. People are people. They are wonderful and loving, they are kind and compassionate, they are cruel and mean, and they are stirrers and troublemakers. There’s nothing you can really do about other people, online or off, and the only real changes you can make are to your own life, letting that be an example for others.

In a magical community, there are extra forces at work, different powers at play, and yet at the heart of it all is simple humanity. There is good and bad in the world, there are good and bad people and everything in between. We all have actions, deeds, or thoughts we regret, as well as beautiful acts of generosity and love. What we need to remember, and indeed foster, is something that I heard Maxine Sanders say in an interview with the Museum of Witchcraft back in December 2017.

She stated that we need more peace and less of the joy of viciousness in our lives. That there is nothing worse that sanctimosity without the holy. These phrases have really struck a chord with me, and make me think of what so many people tell me about the online community today, and what little I have myself experienced over the last twenty years. Before we had the internet these things still occurred, and as I have already stated, people are people. But the far-reaching abundance and ease with which sanctimosity and viciousness can occur online behind a screen of anonymity is something totally new to humanity, and is indeed changing the way that we humans think and behave in the world at large. And it is something that does indeed frighten me.

The main point that I am trying to reach in a rather circumventuous (yes, I just made that word up and I like it) route is that I feel there is a real need to concern yourself less with what others are doing in their own spiritual practice/Craft/religion and to focus on your own work more. It is far easier to belittle, attack or comment on other people’s work than to take a good, hard look at your own. Looking outwards is usually always simpler than looking inwards. But understanding your own self will help you to better understand others far quicker than focusing outwards all the time, in my opinion.

I wrote a blog post at the end of last year about what your life is like when no one is watching, and I feel that ties in neatly with what I am trying to say here. Concern yourself less with what other people think, and take the time to really know and understand what it is that you think, feel, and should work towards. In a magical life and practice, this will certainly be different for every individual, based on their life circumstances such as upbringing, environment, culture and society, economic stability and a whole host of things that fit within Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs (although needs don’t necessarily form a hierarchy). If each person’s practice is unique according to each person’s life experience, then how on earth can anyone tell another that they are doing it wrong? Is this not an ego and control issue, rather than trying to further the Craft/spirituality/religion?

Let’s take Maxine’s advice to heart. Let us find the holy in our own lives, without being sanctimonious about it. Let’s leave off the joy of viciousness in favour of more peace in our own lives. Let’s focus on ourselves and our own practice, and stop comparing them and our lives to others’ on the internet or in the real life community, because we are not getting the full picture in either situation. We can be inspired by those whose words and actions lift us up, and open up new pathways of being, for sure. But living a life of comparison is an empty one.

Live your life, and work your magic as it best works for you.

Because that’s all that you really can do.

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December Photography

Here are some of my favourite photos that I took this month, out on the heath. It’s lovely to be out there, when I’m able, capturing these moments in time.

Happy Holidays!

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What Does Your Life Look Like When No One is Watching?

Social media, urgh. Devices, urgh. Sharing every aspect of you life with people you’ve never even met, urgh. Right now, this is 99% of internet life for most people these days.

I’m going to go on a little rant now, about the ‘good old days’ when we didn’t have mobile phones, internet, heck, even cable tv. Yes, I’m GenX. As kids, we lived most of our lives outside, unless there was a thunderstorm or it was colder than -25C. Friends came over to play, and we had in-person conversations and social interactions. It wasn’t abstract, it wasn’t one-step removed from a real personal meeting. And I feel that we are losing that reality at an incredible rate.

Even if, like me, you’re perfectly happy being on your own and social interactions are kept to a bare minimum, there is still so much relationship to be had with the real world, the natural world around you. I’m hardly ever lonely, because there are birds around me, deer, trees, the sea, the forest. But all that is being sacrificed to spend time online in a virtual world where you can’t smell the woodsmoke on the air, feel the wintery sunlight on your face or walk through the dewy grass. And yes, I see the irony of expressing myself with these words you are reading here on my online blog, my voice being carried virtually across continents to people I’ve never met. But just bear with for a few moments longer, if you would.

I love silence. I crave silence. Most of my day is spent in silence, the only sound the birds in the garden and the clacking of the keyboard as I write my books. But then that wonderful silence is broken by having to post on social media, to remain visible, to post content to keep the algorithm going. And yet I often wonder as I feed the beast that is social media, am I being nourished as well?

I am providing content for these platforms, but am I getting anything in return? When it all comes down to it, there is very little return on the investment of my time and effort spent in these places. But we are taught, aren’t we, that we must post, we must share, we must continue to be present in these spaces. It’s one of the greatest illusions of all time.

And we can get caught up in it all, letting it seep into every single moment of every single day. I have to retrain my brain, because every time I see a wonderful sunset, I want to share it with the world. When I go for a walk and see the deer, I whip out my phone to record them, hoping to inspire others with the beauty of nature. But I am missing out on being present in that moment, with the sunset, with the deer, with the world that is trying to interact with me. It’s like going down to the pub with your mate, who is trying to video everything for their own social media. What’s the point? Who does that nourish? Certainly not one’s own self or the person you are with.

It’s the greatest con of all time.

Here’s the question we should be asking ourselves, day in and day out:

What does my life look like, when no one is watching?

Some people might realise that they don’t even have a life that goes undocumented, and they then must create one, which can be an utter joy and a balm for the soul or frightening as hell. Others realise how much of their lives are a complete and utter illusion, and want the real stuff, the good stuff, that which feeds our soul and not the beast.

We have to release ourselves from this need for validation.

As a self-published author I need social media in order to get the word out about my work. But social media does not need me. It’s an imbalanced relationship. Some people might say the same of cats, but they are obviously not cat people.

It’s okay to live a life that is your own, and not shared with the world. I am making a serious effort to reign in the desire, the need, the built-in mode of share, share, share that social media instructs us to do. Because for the most part, it’s not to our benefit. It changes the way we think, the way we behave, and we can completely lose ourselves in the process. And that’s not something I’m willing to do.

So I will be spending less time in a virtual world, hoping to retrain my brain to be with me in this world, where the cat wants to play, the branches on the trees are sparkling in the sunlight after the rain, and remembering what my life is like when no one is watching.

Because that’s the most important life of all.  

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Feel the magic…

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It has been 1 year!!!

It has been exactly one year since Hedge Witch, Book 1 of the Witches of the New Forest series came out. I want to thank everyone for their kind words, support, comments and reviews. This series has been so successful, and I am just over the moon with it all. I love writing stories and creating magical worlds to escape in, and I look forward to writing more books in this series! Book 5 to come out in 2026!
Witches of the New Forest, the new series by Joanna van der Hoeven.
Available for Kindle, paperback and Kobo editions.
Buy your copy now!
For the UK: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Hedge-Witch-Witches-Forest-Book-ebook/dp/B0DJL1X635
For the US: https://www.amazon.com/Hedge-Witch-Witches-Forest-Book-ebook/dp/B0DJL1X635
For Canada: https://www.amazon.ca/Hedge-Witch-Witches-Forest-Book/dp/B0DLLFZDKM